A Year's Worth of Dreams
by Brightness Wordweaver
Summary: The first time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she wants to dismiss it as a fluke.


**A/N:** Don't own it, never have, never plan to. Life is complicated enough. I had fun playing with the characters, and hope you have fun with the results.

...

The first time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she wants to dismiss it as a fluke. After all, people dream all the time about stuff they've got on their minds, especially if it's weird or strange. And she'll freely admit that when it comes to weird and strange, it's the Labyrinth first, the rest nowhere.

She doesn't like to think about just how much it's been on her mind, though, and not just Hoggle and the rest either.

The Labyrinth is different this time, which makes perfect sense somehow, but in the bits that haven't changed, she remembers enough of her last run to avoid making the same mistakes. She doesn't bother marking anything that's not firmly fastened down, doesn't linger near the Fireys, and definitely doesn't eat anything. Not that anyone joins her this time around who could offer her food, which does seem odd, but she doesn't dwell on it. There's something she needs to find, that she can't quite remember.

She finally makes it to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, but since Jareth elected not to pop up sporadically with a clock this time, she has no idea how long "finally" actually is. The castle is deserted, and disturbingly quiet, but the throne room has one more occupant than the last time she entered it.

"I see you've solved my Labyrinth a second time," Jareth says musingly, draped across his throne. "Perhaps unsurprising, since you have prior experience, but you're certainly the first to even begin a second attempt once you were well away."

"Don't talk to me like that," Sarah says sharply. She has not, at this point, realized that this is a dream. "You brought me here, even though I didn't wish for anything. _I _certainly didn't want to do your stupid maze all over again."

"Didn't you?" Jareth says. "Then why are you here? I may as well tell you it wasn't my fault."

"I came here to find something," Sarah says, more to herself than to the Goblin King. A flash of memory hits her, and she runs at the stairs to her left. "Toby! I'm coming!"

"He's not there," Jareth calls after her. "Don't you think I would have let you know if he were in my custody?"

Sarah ignores him, running full tilt until she reaches the staircase room. Toby is nowhere to be seen or heard, but she can see the flat place where she found him before. Even if he's not there now, it's a good vantage point from which to check the rest of the room.

She takes a deep breath, and jumps...

...and wakes up with a start, in her own bed. The pitch darkness disorients her for a moment, and then she remembers. In moments, she's out of her bedroom and down the hall, peering through the cracked-open door of her father and stepmother's room. Toby is in his crib, fast asleep. The Labyrinth, she reminds herself, was several days ago, and absolutely nothing strange has happened since the after-midnight party in her room.

...

The fifth time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she's aware at the time that it's a dream, right from the beginning. Her initial response is concern, because she remembers reading that recurring dreams about a particular event can be a sign of trauma. She doesn't feel especially traumatized, however; she only panicked about Toby being missing that first time, and afterwards knew better as soon as she woke up. Plus, if this were a flashback, it would be the same every time, and it's not-the Labyrinth is markedly different every time, almost as if trying to prove to her that she's _not_ having flashbacks.

She shoves that distinctly weird thought to the back of her head and runs the Labyrinth.

"I keep telling you, your infant brother is not here," Jareth says, tone laced with boredom, when Sarah enters the throne room. "When are you going to get it through your head? I thought you were supposed to be clever."

"I know Toby's not here," Sarah says calmly. "This is a dream. It took me a few rounds to figure it out, but when you keep having the same dream every few nights, it's not that hard."

Jareth sits up a little more, actually looking halfway interested now. "A dream? Really? How curious."

"Don't how-curious me. You can deny it all you want, but you're clearly behind all this somehow. If you are the real Goblin King, that is, and not some figment of my imagination."

"Oh, I am certainly real, precious thing," Jareth is on his feet now, pacing lazily. "But 'behind all this' I am not. Tell me, why did you bother coming all the way to the castle if you knew you were dreaming?"

"I always wake up when I jump to the flat place in the staircase room," Sarah says. "So the sooner I get there, the sooner the dream ends."

Jareth moves, and suddenly is quite definitely between her and the stairs, all the while giving off an air of utmost indifference. "And why would you be in such a hurry to leave?" he asks, sounding almost hurt if Sarah didn't know better. "As long as you're going to be asleep anyway, you might as well be here."

Sarah feints right, then ducks the other way under his arm. "With a kidnapper who runs people through impossible mazes for fun? I don't think so." And she's around the corner before he can try to catch her.

She's not quite fast enough to miss him saying, "Not people, love. Are you forgetting your own story?"

Sarah jumps, and falls, and wakes up, and firmly decides to forget she heard anything.

She does, however, start a dream journal, exclusively for the Labyrinth, and hides it in a part of her room where absolutely no one but herself will ever find it.

She tells herself that it's so she can remember tricks for how to solve the maze faster.

...

The thirteenth time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she accidentally discovers she can wake herself up by falling from the branches of an incredibly gnarled and twisted oak tree. Experimentation in subsequent dreams leads her to suspect it has something to do with the way the tree's branches seem to bend into more than three dimensions; other drops from tall structures or into holes don't work.

Having discovered this alternate method of awakening, Sarah makes straight for the oak tree for several dreams in a row, and never goes near the Goblin City or the Castle beyond it at all.

...

The twenty-first time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she can't find the oak tree anywhere. The entire section where it used to be, which she's gotten pretty good at locating, has simply vanished. She spends a decent amount of time looking for other structures of wandering dimensionality, but there just aren't any. At last, she makes her way to the castle, rather tired (she'd never known you _could_ feel tired in a dream), frustrated, and determined to have words with a particular ruler of the Underground.

"You moved the tree, didn't you," she says, without preamble, the moment she enters the throne room. For a moment, she thinks Jareth looks pleased to see her, but his face resumes its typical aloof haughtiness quick as blinking.

"Perhaps I did," he says, in a tone that might be called insolent if he didn't rule the ground Sarah was standing on. "It is my kingdom, after all. And I had grown to quite look forward to your visits, brief as they are."

"What do you want from me?" Sarah demands through gritted teeth. "You're supposed to have no power over me."

"Nor do I," Jareth replies mildly. "I want what I've always wanted from you, precious thing. You should really have some idea by this point."

Sarah, for once, does not flee for the staircase room, but stalks towards it, without saying a word more, ignoring Jareth's low, amused chuckle at her determined dignity.

...

For quite a few Labyrinth-dreams after that, Sarah doesn't even bother to speak to Jareth when she passes through the throne room. She's quite convinced that this whole setup is his doing, no matter what he says, and she's not going to give him the satisfaction of even being noticed. Jareth, for his part, makes no attempt to block her way, preferring to merely follow her with his eyes as she makes her way from one doorway to another.

The dreams aren't quite as frequent now, no oftener than once a week and sometimes further apart. Sarah tells herself quite firmly, on the morning after her tenth uneventful night in a row, that she is glad of it.

To prove it to herself, she jogs the whole way through the Labyrinth next time, never breaking stride even inside the Castle until she plummets through the staircase room.

"A girl your age should be going on dates, making friends her own age!" Karen fusses for approximately the fiftieth time. Sarah ignores her. She has plenty of friends-Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus and Ambrosius-whenever she needs them, even if they're mysteriously absent from her Labyrinth-dreams and don't seem to know what she's talking about when she brings said dreams up.

...

The thirty-fourth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, Jareth is waiting for her at the beginning, leaning against the gate in his typical lazy posture. Sarah glares at him. "I knew you were low enough to drag me back and make me start over, but keeping me from even getting in? That's so low I'm amazed you're on this side of the grass."

"And yet, it's a tactic that has succeeded in making you speak to me, so I consider it well worthwhile," Jareth says with a smirk. "In fact, I have no intention of keeping you out of the Labyrinth, so long as you walk it with me."

Sarah considers this. It's walk with Jareth or scale the wall, and he'll probably pop up and follow her anyway, so- "Fine." Jareth moves, and she sees an opportunity to turn the situation to her advantage. "But you might as well know, if you're where I can see you, I'm going to ask any questions I can think of."

Jareth not only doesn't seem to mind this, but he holds the gate open for her with a flourish. Sarah pretends not to notice.

"So how are you doing this?" she asks. "You can say all you want that you're not responsible for these recurring dreams, but I'm not doing it, so it's definitely you."

"In a sense, both of us are right," Jareth says. "I am not 'responsible', as you put it, for your mind reaching out for the Labyrinth on a regular basis, nor could I be if I chose. However, your reaching out, combined with the ties you already have to the place, is enough, not to let me in, perhaps, but to make a bridge. And thus, we are able to meet."

"So," Sarah says skeptically, "this isn't the real Labyrinth? Just something I made up?"

"More accurate to say that we are in a reflection of the Labyrinth as it stands at the given moment, but unpopulated."

"But you're here," Sarah points out. "And, according to you, you're actual-you, not reflection-you or made-up-in-my-head-you."

"Quite right," Jareth nods, looking pleased. "Wherever the Labyrinth is, I can go, even if it is only a copy. Not to mention that my presence makes the reflection stronger, more detailed."

"Lucky me," Sarah growls. "How do I make it stop?"

"If you truly wanted it to stop, precious thing, it would have a long time ago."

...

The fortieth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, she really is tempted to climb over the wall. Jareth is waiting where he always is, anymore, but she's really not in the mood to be around anyone. Really, can't she at least get some peace at night?

Jareth has the gate open for her before she can attempt an alternate route, however, so Sarah sulkily settles for his company, not speaking a word. The Goblin King, perhaps sensing her mood, similarly refrains from speaking. They walk side by side through the Labyrinth in silence that starts out frigid, but gradually thaws as the hours pass.

Not so much as a syllable passes between them for the entire dream, but Sarah, upon waking, finds that she despises Jareth a little less than before.

She decides to repay him, just a little, with some added friendliness in their conversation the next time they walk together.

...

"How often does the Labyrinth change, exactly?" Sarah asks, the sixty-third time she dreams of the Labyrinth. She's making it an asking-questions-about-the-Underground night.

"I don't know _exactly_," Jareth admits. "It is never quite the same from one examination to the next. If you watch it, however, the change is so slow it appears nearly stagnant."

"So you don't actually control the changes," Sarah probes.

"Some of the time I do," Jareth says carelessly. _Like removing the oak tree_, Sarah thinks. "But not always. I rule it, but I don't direct it."

"So everyone who runs it gets a different experience," Sarah says, thinking out loud.

Jareth chuckles. "In a way. I must not have made myself clear before." He smiles sharply, turning Sarah towards him with a hand on her arm-the first time he's touched her since the dreams started. "Precious thing, you are the _only_ one who runs the Labyrinth. Contrary to your suppositions, I don't deal with tens or hundreds of people wishing children into my kingdom. You are the only one who happens to have those...certain powers."

_Certain powers_. The words flicker something in Sarah's brain. _The Goblin King had fallen in love with her, and granted her..._

She is sixteen, and this man once tried to take her little brother away. No.

Sarah changes the subject, asking about the moss with the eyes in it.

...

The eighty-seventh time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, Jareth unexpectedly asks, "How is Toby, by the way?"

Sarah's brain spins, scrabbling for purchase. Jareth never asks about anything in her waking life, and Toby has been a subject they've mutually avoided ever since they started walking together.

"He's...doing well," she says finally. "He's around two and a half now, running everywhere. Can't really talk yet, but he's trying anyway. Karen-my stepmother-calls him a handful, but she always laughs when she says it. I still watch him every weekend."

There is a lengthy pause.

"He came to no harm during your run, while in my castle," Jareth says finally. "Nor, I suppose you should know, would I have turned him into a goblin had you failed. I said he would become one of mine, I said nothing about transformation."

"I still wouldn't have seen him again," Sarah says quietly. "I mean...I hated that he was my stepbrother, because after he was born I knew my parents wouldn't ever really make up. But I'd always wanted siblings in general, and he's kind of my only shot."

"You're wrong about one thing," Jareth says after a moment. "You would have seen him again."

Sarah looks at him, not sure what to think. His expression is serious, but a trifle playful.

"He would have stayed here, of course," he says, "but I had every intention of letting you...visit."

...

The hundredth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, nothing especial happens to mark the occasion. She walks with Jareth; they discuss the Underground and Toby and the doings of goblins and Sarah's family as they have grown accustomed to doing. She doesn't even realize that it's the hundredth time until she wakes up and goes to add a new entry to her Labyrinth journal. Her one small notebook has grown to a collection, each one hidden in a different nook or cranny. She's taking up more space per entry now-soon she'll need to buy another new addition (number five, but who's counting?).

When she does write down the number, 100, she blinks at it for a moment. Once upon a time, she muses, she had demanded to know how to make these dreams stop. Now, she would be worried if they did.

...

The one hundred and forty-third time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, she breathes a sigh of relief as soon as she finds herself in the gardens outside the gate. Jareth looks at her a trifle quizzically.

"I turned eighteen a few days ago," Sarah explains. Now that it's sinking in that she's _here_, properly here, she's having to resist the urge to grin madly, run about touching everything, or even (despite it being an incredibly foolhardy idea) hug Jareth. He still doesn't seem to understand the significance of what she's talking about.

"In my-culture, I guess you could say, where I'm from," she continues. "turning eighteen means you're an adult, legally speaking. There's still some things you can't do till you're twenty-one, but... Anyway, I was afraid I might stop dreaming all this. That it might be something I, I don't know, outgrow."

Jareth looks indignant. "You, outgrow the Labyrinth? I'd like to see you try. Besides which, that is a perfectly arbitrary age to be considered an adult."

Sarah considers this. The few friends she's made outside of the Underground (at Karen's none-too-gentle insistence) certainly don't seem grown-up to her in any sense, even the ones who are a little older than her. Her father, on the other hand-the way he talks about his childhood, filled with newspaper routes and tiny business ventures, she wonders if he took any time at all to grow up.

"Take the goblins, for instance," Jareth says, leading her into the Labyrinth. He takes her arm, like an old-fashioned promenader; he's been doing that more and more often lately. "Many of them have lived for several decades and are in their prime. However, they are still incredibly childlike and imbecilic, in most instances."

"Kicking them up in the air can't be good for their IQ," Sarah counters mischievously. She's not going to outgrow dreaming about the Labyrinth, so nothing can go wrong.

Jareth looks mock-wounded. "Sometimes, Sarah love, the only language a goblin understands is a swift boot."

Sarah is less successful at ignoring the casual endearment this time.

...

The one hundred seventy-eighth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, Jareth walks her through a garden of brilliantly colored flowers that has never been on their route before. Everything seems more vivid than usual; when she asks, he says it's probably because of Hallowe'en, and their worlds being more closely aligned than the rest of the year.

When she wakes, she grabs for her latest Labyrinth-journal to write everything down right away, before it can fade, rather than waiting till morning. As her pen scribbles across the page, she hears a muffled thump and some familiar coughing. Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus have made an appearance.

Ludo, naturally, wants to know what she's doing, and she explains that she's keeping notes on the Labyrinth dreams she told them about. "Jareth explained why I never see any of you there," she adds, since the subject hasn't come up in the meantime. "Something about the Labyrinth I'm dreaming about being a copy, and making a bridge-"

"You address the Goblin King by his name?" Sir Didymus interjects, looking slightly gobsmacked.

Sarah actually has to take a moment to think about it. "I don't really call him anything," she says slowly. "I just think 'Jareth' in my head because it's easier than 'Goblin King'." _That, and there doesn't seem to be any point in calling him by a title at this point_, she thinks.

"And what does he call you?" Hoggle says with gruff suspicion.

_Sarah love, precious thing..._ Sarah doesn't answer, but that seems to be an answer in and of itself. Her three friends exchange significant looks.

Sarah asks Sir Didymus how Ambrosius and the Bog are doing.

...

The two hundred sixteenth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, Jareth looks significantly mussed. There are black chicken feathers in his hair and a streak of what looks like gunpowder on his jaw. To her credit, Sarah does not laugh.

She does, however, ask what the reason is for his disarray, and after a long sigh, he tells her. "I was straightening out a goblin quarrel, and it was a little more complicated than usual."

"Tell me about it," she says, and he does.

By the end of the story, Sarah still isn't sure she fully understands, but the one thing she has got quite clear in her mind is that goblin governance is a lot more complicated than the occasional kick and threatening people with the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Jareth seems to read this in her mildly poleaxed expression, and smiles, with more reassurance than sharpness this time. "I can teach you more about it. We have plenty of time."

_Before what?_, Sarah wants to ask. Instead she says, "Good. What is there to know?"

They start spending more time in the dreams in the Goblin City and the Castle beyond it, and as she watches Jareth explaining about the absent goblins, she realizes he has been teaching her about the Labyrinth these past months and years, just as he is now teaching her how to rule it.

...

The two hundred sixty-ninth time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, they find their way to a craggy stone tower that overlooks nearly the whole place. It's a truly stunning view, by anyone's standards, and Sarah can't stop turning round and round, trying to take everything in and wishing she could bring a camera into dreams because she can't draw worth two cents. Then she spots Jareth, who, despite the surroundings, only seems to be watching her.

"You know, you would have walked the Labyrinth no matter what choice you made," he says, noticing her eyes on him. "That night you wished away Toby, I mean. If you'd taken the crystal instead, you would have come to exactly the same place."

They have come far enough that this revelation doesn't make Sarah fly into a rage with him, but she is rather annoyed. "Why did you make me choose, then? What was the difference?"

"The difference," Jareth says, watching her closely, "is that if you had chosen the crystal, your dreams, you would have walked the Labyrinth with me by your side. As we do now."

Sarah doesn't know quite what to do with this information.

"Perhaps it was better that you chose responsibility, in the end," the Goblin King continues. "The quest you undertook let you prove your worth and bravery, and perhaps lent you some wisdom. At the time, though, all I knew was that you left, and I did not know when, or if, you would return."

Sarah tries to imagine the possibility he's outlined. This way, what they have now, is better, she knows that. It may have taken them longer to get here, but she is a better person for what happened along the way. And Toby has a life with his parents, like she never got to have, and he's learning to read and count and everything now, and she's glad every day she won him back.

"I know," Jareth says, and Sarah wonders how much of her thoughts show on her face. "But in any case, you should know-I always intended that you should see the Labyrinth like this."

...

The two hundred eighty-first time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, she gets up the nerve to say, "How long were you planning to bring me here? Before I wished Toby away?"

Jareth thinks a moment, then laughs. "I can't really say. Time flows differently in the Underground, as I'm sure you know, and my ways of marking it would likely translate poorly to yours. But I have been keeping an eye on you for a long while, since you were a child. Your dreams drew me in; they were so vibrant. I left you the book, a glimpse of the Underground, and when you loved it, I hoped to bring you here when you were woman grown. Then you called on me sooner than expected."

Sarah listens, taking it all in. Months or years ago, such a revelation would have creeped her down to the bones, but now, all her head can do is spin (_how you turn my world_) and she imagines coming to the gate of the Labyrinth and not finding Jareth waiting for her. She imagines going night after night without dreaming of the Labyrinth at all.

"So when you said those things, the first time, in the staircase room..." she begins.

Jareth finishes. "My intention was to make you the Goblin Queen."

...

When Sarah awakes, she leaps out of bed and digs all her Labyrinth journals out of their various hiding places. There are seven notebooks of varying size now, and she lines them up on the bed, flipping through them at random. Even awake, she can't escape the sensation that it would be the worst thing in the world if her dreams of the Labyrinth-of _Jareth_-were to end.

The journals, now that she reads over them, are full of him. Jareth let me just walk today when I didn't want to speak to him, Jareth explained how the Cleaners work, Jareth told me how it works that the Bog of Eternal Stench is always in the Labyrinth somewhere. Jareth walked me through the gardens today again. Jareth explained how to get the goblins to listen.

Her head is full of _A girl your age should be going on dates_, and _Are you forgetting your own story?_, and _What does he call you?_, and _I want what I've always wanted from you, precious thing._

...

The two hundred ninetieth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, she runs, not to the gate, but to Jareth, standing directly before him. Her pulse is pounding (she didn't know that could happen in dreams either), but she's determined to say what she needs to say.

"Is your intention still to make me the Goblin Queen?" she asks, looking him in the eye.

Jareth's unevenly dilated gaze meets hers. "It is," he admits. "But I have learned, precious thing, that my intentions do not always come to pass where you are concerned."

"Maybe not how you expect," Sarah says, and kisses him.

That night, they do not walk the Labyrinth, but sit by the gate and talk. Things, quite clearly, will be different now.

He returns her kiss more than once before the dream is over.

...

No two dreams are the same after that. Sometimes they will be in the Labyrinth, or the garden outside. Sometimes they will be in the castle, or in the empty Goblin City. He is always there to meet her, wherever they start, and they go where they please from there. Sometimes one of them will choose the path, and sometimes the other will.

The three hundred eighteenth dream comes on the night of Sarah's twenty-first birthday. She has spent the day in arguments with her father and Karen, who are quite certain she is doing nothing with her life and take offense. She has neither gone to college (which might put her father on her side), nor has she so much as hinted about any marriage prospects (which would make Karen happy with her). She tries not to shout, for Toby's sake-she remembers being his age and all the adults around her fighting.

That night, her dream takes place in a crystal ballroom, but there are no masks in evidence, and she wears green and gold instead of white, and Jareth makes himself easy to find. They dance until dawn, and there are not enough words in her notebooks to describe it.

The three hundred and sixtieth time Sarah dreams about the Labyrinth, she asks, "How long until I can come to the Underground to stay?"

"Not long, Sarah love," Jareth promises.

...

The three hundred and sixty-sixth time Sarah dreams of the Labyrinth, she doesn't know it at first. This lapse is perfectly excusable, because it all starts in her own house, while she is in the middle of doing weekend chores.

The first sign that something is different comes with the knock on the door. No one ever knocks on the door; all her father and Karen's guests ring the doorbell. Sarah has a creeping feeling she should answer it, but she's wearing old clothes and her hair is a mess, and she doesn't feel like it, so she stays put. Karen answers the door, and lets out a small shriek.

Sarah immediately knows this is something she should have handled.

Jareth is standing at the open door, looking only slightly less intimidating than he did on that first, fateful, stormy night. Sarah thinks about the clump of dust on her shoulder, and promptly shoves the unhelpful knowledge to the furthest corner of her mind.

"Your stepmother, I take it, was not expecting me," Jareth says mildly.

"I wouldn't worry," Sarah says, running to him. "It's a dream; she won't remember. I don't know why she's even here, but-"

Jareth laughs, and sweeps her into a kiss against a background of Karen's feeble protests. "It's not a dream. Not anymore. Didn't you ask when you could come to the Underground to stay?"

By this time, Sarah's father has joined Karen in the front hall, and is wearing a matching shocked expression. Toby is peering around the stairwell, and looks positively gleeful.

"Sarah," says the Goblin King to the mildly catatonic adults, "is my intended. I have come to claim her, if she has no objections-which it seems she does not." He addresses Sarah, who is still by his side. "Is there anything you wish to take with you?"

Sarah shakes her head. "It's all junk. Karen, I am sorry you're going to have to go through it all. I would've cleared it out beforehand if I'd known."

She takes Jareth's hand, and the two of them vanish in a flash of magic. Toby cheers, but quickly goes silent when his parents look round.

"Karen," Sarah says when she finds her breath and her feet, "will be extremely disappointed that she didn't get to plan my wedding. But I don't think she could have handled the goblins."

"Who, since you mention them, are waiting to meet you," Jareth says. "Everyone is."

And the Goblin King and his soon-to-be-Queen walked hand in hand to survey their kingdom.


End file.
